How Secure Is The New Facebook Open Graph?

Facebook has been the king of social media for several years now. There is no denying that at this point. When people think of a social media web site, their very first thought is of Facebook. And this was the case long before the movie even came out. Facebook has slowly grown over the last six years and has integrated itself into a very important part of our lives.

And that is the reason why Facebook is so popular. It is because everyone else that we know is on there. And of course everyone that they know is on there as well. This chain goes on and on. It has gone well beyond just being a tool for a certain age group. These days you will find your younger siblings and your grandparents all on Facebook. They made sure that this gigantic web page had something for everyone. For the older set, not only can they keep up with the rest of their family members on there but they also have mini games to play. For the younger set, you have applications such as instant messenger. It allows you to be able to chat with your friends well after the school bell rings. The main job of Facebook is to keep everyone happy so they will continue making content and seeing the ads that pop up every now and then.

But Facebook is not content in the position that they are in right now. The one thing every big business knows on the internet is that there is someone who is always ready to take your place. Facebook knows that better than anyone since they are the ones who knocked down the giant that was known as Myspace. All you have to do is to be able to give the people what the other site is not and then they will flock over. Facebook is doing all that they can to keep that from happening to them. To do that they are trying to build what Warren Buffet would call a gigantic moat. This means that they have a feature that would be hard for other competitor web sites to be able to duplicate. When it comes to Facebook, their gigantic moat is the people who use the service.

While Facebook may have a lot of features that it offers the people who sign up for it, that is not the main reason why people stay. The main reason why they stay is what we said earlier in the article and that is because all of the people that they know are on Facebook as well. So to capitalize on this fact, Facebook has added new features that will make it easier for people to be able to see what you are doing. But it is not just to see what you are doing now, but it will also allow people to see easier what you are doing in the future as well.

The open graph

This new way of doing things is what is known as the open graph. It allows people to be able to see what is going on with and you and at the same time get to know you a little better than before. One of the main parts of the open graph is what is known as Timeline. Timeline is supposed to allow people you know to scroll down memory lane with you. It starts with the time that you joined Facebook and scrolls all the way up to the present. But it not only shows what you posted but what other people posted about you as well. This is a very neat feature but some people in the security industry see a real problem with it.

And if you think about it you will be able to see the problem as well. The problem is that Facebook had already made it easy for people to be able to stalk you. They could become your friends and see all of your posts or they could just see the ones that you made public. And if you did not change the security settings of your postings then that would be all of them. With the new Timeline feature, this is made even easier. They actually have a physical time line of everything that you do during the day. Someone with a little bit of brains and not very good intentions would be able to put together a way to be able to do something bad towards you.

When it comes to Facebook, they really walk the tightrope when it comes to a person’s privacy when they use the service. While they do not try to do anything maliciously, they make money with your information. So they need to make as much of your information as public as possible. This can cause a real security concern.

Lee's non-technical background allows him to write about internet security in a clear way that is understandable to both IT professionals and people just like you who need simple answers to your security questions.